The Power of Parents
Parents undoubtedly play a critical role in shaping the lives of their children. For most children, the environment that they are raised in is directly built and maintained by parents’ decisions, beliefs, and values, which often translate into those of the growing individual. At Takau English School, an elite private K-12 school in Taiwan, we observed that many of the students’ values were acquired from their family through emphasis on their parents’ values. For example, most students indicated that family was incredibly important to them, but one value specifically stressed by their parents was respect for their elders. Also, while several students valued hard work and gratitude as morals gained from their parents, another student expressed that her commitment to contributing to the community was largely influenced by her parents’ roles as doctors that emphasized this value.
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But outside of inherited values and guiding life principles, we also saw instances of parental involvement that seemed overly striking. In particular, while discussing how often he spends time with his parents, Lee shared that “[I’m] with my parents all the time when I come home… they’re just sitting beside me,” and proceeded to point to his parents at the edge of the virtual interview screen. Another student also shared a related experience, in which her mom stepped in to listen to the interview and hence the student introduced her to the interviewer. Although parents aren’t directly intervening in the students’ thoughts or actions through their own here, their constant presence in their childrens’ spaces supports the notion that they maintain hyper-influence over the students’ lives.
Traditionally, strong parental influence through high expectations for educational outcomes and achievement have been noted particularly in Asian cultures (1). In alignment with this, one perspective in parenting proposes that academic excellence is directed through strictly enforcing students to adhere to a tightly regulated educational schedule, an approach known as authoritarian parenting (2). In contrast to autonomy-granting parenting, which promotes more independence in the process of learning and growing, authoritarian parenting allows little space for independent pursuits and strong emphasis on outcome attainment (2). Authoritarian parenting in several Asian countries has been examined in part as a product of Confucian ideology, where the core value of filial piety requires children to have unequivocal respect for and conformity to their parents’ decisions and desires (1,2). This philosophy inherently undermines individual autonomy in children resulting in stronger tendencies for obeying their parents’ educational demands even if they differ from their own desires – granted if students can recognize how their own needs differ from those of their parents.
Returning back to TES, authoritarian parenting may contribute to the educational values that students expressed. Through our research, we discovered that Confucian ideas are tightly entwined in Taiwanese culture, and as reflected above in our interviews, family is considered an utmost priority to students. Combined with our observation of seemingly hyper-involved parents, we suspect that many students at TES may be subject to authoritarian parenting, which may even more so restrict their ability to recognize their own independence. Lee, who first indicated that his parents are constantly by his side at home, later stated during the interview that “half of [my expectations in school] is my parents and the other half is myself”. Given the discussion above, I wonder how much of ‘his half’ of the academic expectations placed on him are truly his own desire to distinguish himself in school, or instead if these may be a reflection of his personal commitment to the values of filial piety that his family’s culture embraces.
Works Cited
- Poon, D. (2013). Parental influence on Asian Americas’ educational and vocational outcomes. Applied Psychology OPUS. https://wp.nyu.edu/steinhardt-appsych_opus/parental-influence-on-asian-americans-educational-and-vocational-outcomes/
- Hung, J. (2018). Parenting Styles, Academic Demands and Children’s Psychosocial Well-being: Why Today’s Hong Kong Chinese Students Are So Stressed. The Columbia University Journal of Global Health, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.7916/thejgh.v8i2.4854